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World-leading academics

Research at the School of History feeds into our teaching, so you’ll be learning from leaders in the field.

Not only are our academics leaders in their field, but their enthusiasm and knowledge directly translate into the modules you study and materials you read. Research undertaken at the School of History directly informs our teaching, so you’ll be learning from experts on topics encompassing the history of Islam, the Black Death, gender in politics and history,  the war on terror and many others.

Professor Emma Griffin

Prof. Emma Griffin is a Professor of Modern British history and Head of School of History.  Emma has written five books, most recently Bread Winner: An Intimate History of the Victorian Economy (Yale University Press, 2020), and is currently writing a global history of industrialisation for Penguin Press.

In addition to Emma Griffin's work as a researcher and teacher, she enjoys belonging and contributing to the wider community of historians. Prof. Emma  Griffin is the current President of the Royal Historical Society, having previously been an active member of its Council in the 2010s in a variety of roles. Emma has spent many years engaged in editorial work and has served as editor for History; Historical Journal; Cultural and Social History and the Camden Series.

 

Dr Rob Waters

Dr Rob Waters  is the author of  Thinking Black: Britain, 1964-1985 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018) and Colonized by Humanity: Caribbean London and the Politics of Integration at the End of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Rob teaches the following modules:

  • Unraveling Britain: British History since 1801
  • Decolonisation and History
  • Race, Ethnicity and Immigration: Britain from the 1905 Aliens Act to Brexit

 

Dr Joanna Cohen

Dr Joanna Cohen gained her BA from Cambridge and MA from Northwestern University before moving to Philadelphia in 2003 to do her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.


Living in the city where the United States was born fostered her fascination with the history of American citizenship; research in New York furthered her love of Manhattan’s historic department stores. Joanna's first book, Luxurious Citizens: Consumption and Civic Belonging in Nineteenth Century America, (Penn Press, 2017) charts the creation of the citizen-consumer in the US before the Civil War. It reveals how merchants, manufacturers, retailers, advertiser and shoppers themselves attempted to define civic virtue through both personal and national shopping habits, resulting in a vision of citizenship that to this day positions consumption as an American virtue and entitlement. 

Dr Joanna Cohen teaches the following modules

  • Building the American Nation: 1776-1896
  • Consumed: American Consumer Culture from the 18th to the 21st century

 

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